Rewarded with Ridibundus

Photographed by Zac Hinchcliffe

Seeing as though we had entered the start of a new month, the night before we made a decision to head up to the Lake District to do some ringing at Bowness-on-Windermere.. Getting a good night's sleep the night before was essential as we were up rather early on Tuesday morning and on the train to Preston before 8am..

Photographed by Zac Hinchcliffe

Meeting up with Ciaran and Chris Piner at Preston train station shortly after, the 5 of us headed up to the Lake District to try and catch some gulls and geese.. On arrival, it seemed quite quiet with very few birds around, but throughout the day, things began to liven up.

The main aim of this trip was to try and catch a Black-headed Gull to kick-start the new colour-ringing project - more on this tomorrow! Ciaran successfully hand-caught an adult and seeing as though this was the first bird of the project, we were all exceptionally happy, especially Ciaran and Kane.. This bird was metal ringed and then had a darvic added to it's left leg, biometric data collected and the bird was released - go far my friend!

There was also a very confiding 1st-winter Common gull which was again hand-caught by Ciaran. Also caught during the day were 1 Mallard, 1 Greylag goose and 4 Canada geese. When we are ringing at Windermere, all of our birds that we catch are caught by hand and as we were introducing Zac to this method, he was keen to give it a go and successfully caught a male Mallard!

We also gave the Mute swans here a thorough check, in which we checked that all metal rings were in good condition and that the Darvics were not damaged - resulting in 53 birds being caught and processed.

Arriving back in Preston late afternoon, we said our goodbyes to Ciaran and Chris, whilst Kane and Zaz headed back to Atherton and I headed back to Ormskirk, to visit the parents and to catch up with some washing..

On the Wednesday, myself, Zac, Kane and Ciaran went for a meal in Manchester and a drink, mainly because Ciaran will be leaving us shortly. Ciaran is starting a new job on the Farne Islands in Northumberland as an Assistant Warden for 6 months, so when we will see him again who knows..?

I wish you the best of luck with your new job mate and hope everything goes to plan, I shall be up to see you sometime during the spring and autumn for a light spot of birding!!

After ringing constantly since Friday 25th February, it was finally time to depart and head back to North Wales on the Thursday morning accompanied with Zac.. Huge thanks to Kane for inviting us along for the week, Janine for her kind hospitality, Chris Piner for doing all the driving to the Lake District. See you all soon lads!!!

Mist-netting at Shakerley..

A visit to Kane's feeding station at Shakerley was next on the agenda for this week. So on Monday morning we went and set the 40ft mist-net near his feeders and retreated back to the car and waited for the birds to arrive.

During the first net-round, we were rather pleased to find a Redwing and a Lesser Redpoll - maybe the start of a productive morning..
As the morning went on, bird numbers seemed to decrease, so we were quite happy with a total of 20 birds for our morning's effort. During the morning we also managed to catch 6 Long-tailed tit, 3 Goldfinch, 2 Lesser Redpoll, 2 Reed Bunting, 2 Great tit, 2 Blue tit, Blackbird and Greenfinch amongst several re-traps..

After finishing here, we collected the gear that we would need for our trip up to the Lakes the next day..

More Redpolls!!

Yesterday's ringing session over at Rindle Road, catching Yellowhammers was a great start to the week's ringing. On Sunday morning, the 4 of us {Kane, Ciaran, myself and Zac} had a leisurely morning's mist-netting over at Michael and Mary's Garden in Worsley - Greater Manchester.

We have visited this garden twice before as this is where we have caught large numbers of Redpolls that are feeding on the Niger feeders.

Take a look at these 2 posts at the large number of Redpolls caught in the garden amongst other species:- http://traineebirdringing.blogspot.com/2011/01/raining-redpolls.html and
http://traineebirdringing.blogspot.com/2011/01/mealy-steals-show.html.

Throughout the morning we caught 21 birds of which 14 were new and 7 re-traps. A Sparrowhawk unfortunately managed to avoid capture..

New birds - 6 Lesser Redpoll , 4 Goldfinch, 1 House Sparrow, 1 Starling, 1 Great-Spotted Woodpecker and 1 Siskin.

Re-traps - 6 Lesser Redpoll and 1 Mealy Redpoll.

We were lucky enough to re-trap the Mealy {Common} Redpoll from previous visits, which was nice to find that it had stuck around for the winter. A male Siskin also brightened up the morning as it was a new species to be ringed in the garden. This mist-netting session was also a good opportunity for Zac to practise extracting birds, as he has recently started to train to ring birds with my trainer, Steve Dodd. Huge thanks as always to Michael and Mary for allowing us to ring in their garden again and for the lovely cups of tea and coffee provided throughout the morning.

Great-Spotted Woodpecker, Siskin and Lesser Redpoll and Group shot all photographed by Zac Hinchcliffe..

Ringing at Rindle Road

Photographed by Zac Hinchcliffe

Eventually 5pm on Friday 25th February arrived, my lecture finished and with bags packed, myself and Zac met at the station where we later hopped on a train; a few hours later we were greeted by Kane at Newton-Le-Willows station, ready for what was hopefully going to be a great weeks ringing. Ciaran then joined us later on in the evening..

Meeting up with Steve Christmas on Astley Moss {SSSI}, at Rindle Road early on Saturday morning. We erected 3 mist nets along the hedge, so to maximise our disturbance in the area. Retreating back to the cars, we waited for the birds to appear. Several hours later we had caught a sufficient 23 birds, which included several nicities such as Willow tit and Yellowhammer.

Other birds caught during the morning included Reed Bunting, Great Tit, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Tree Sparrow. Moving off from here we headed off in convoy to check out a flock of c.40 Waxwings in nearby Westhoughton by the Doctor's surgery. On arrival the birds could be seen sat in a nearby Willow tree and shortly descended to the berries.. Unfortunately, it was too windy to try and catch them..

Grabbing some lunch back in Atherton, we headed to Shakerly where a small pool had formed in the last week, in which Kane had 2 Coot on them just the day before. However, overnight; torrential rain had made the pool into a lake but as we were used to catching Whooper swans this way, we dove right in...

Photographed by Zac Hinchcliffe

If the pool had been smaller we would have been able to catch the 2 Coot, but after a failed attempt to corale them into a small area that we could have caught them in, we gave up as we were somewhat rather wet.. Icy cold water above your waist was enough to tell us it was time to get out.. Many thanks to Steve Christmas for inviting us along..

Drying off back in Atherton, we arranged to net the Redpoll garden in Worsley the following day..

Ringing Roundup!

Over the last couple of weeks there has been quite a lot of activity on the ringing front, mainly as I have been out ringing more or less every day since Friday 25th February.. This is because I have had my reading week at university and so I decided to try and do as much ringing as possible. Also, after having a great twitch to see the Oriental Turtle Dove in Oxfordshire 2 weeks ago, finding the time to post on the blog proved rather difficult as my workload at university doubled and with the continued need to get my presentation on soil erosion completed and sent in, for 5pm on Monday, there just hasn't been time to update.

Not to worry though as throughout today, I shall give a full update on my ringing activities throughout last week and some other news..

Oriental Turtle Dove!!!

Photographed by Roger Wyatt

In 2010, every time a rare bird turned up in Britain I would do my very best to try and twitch it! However, after spending far too much money on train fares, travelling hundreds of miles all over the United Kingdom, it soon hit home and twitching began to drain out of my system. Although at the beginning of 2011, I said to myself that I wasn't going to twitch this year, I knew that something would be too tempting and all hell would break loose.

So when an Oriental Turtle Dove {Form Orientalis} turned up in a garden in Oxfordshire, I was hopeful that the bird would stay for some time and that there was a chance of me seeing it. A few weeks passed and time was ticking, as I just couldn't find the time to twitch it. Luckily on Tuesday 22nd February I had the day off and the bird was still there! So the night before, I hopped on a train to Rhyl, where I kipped at Alex's house that night and early the next morning, myself and Alex set off in search of this rare dove.. {If this was last year when I was doing my big yearlist, I wouldn't have left it as long as I did}.

Photographed by Jason Stannage

Seeing as though the bird had been in the area for quite some time, more or less every twitcher had seen it and there were just a few left-overs.. On arrival at 'The Leys' a few birders were in sight and shortly after, Steve Aker in which this was the guy who had found the dove and in his garden too, opened his front door to say that the bird was in the garden, on the bird table!!?

Standing in his kitchen, staring through the window into this superb garden filled with birds, there..sat at the back..was the Oriental Turtle Dove!! Unfortunately it was so hot in the room with 30 or so birders, trying to get a good view of the bird, my bins steamed up, but this was shortly resolved. Ridiculously poor pictures were obtained so attached is an image of the dove in the garden, photographed by Roger Wyatt. What a great picture Roger!!

After satisfying views, we made our way out and sat in the car, munching lunch and dwelling on what we had just witnessed.. A cracking bird! This was the 3rd record for Britain for this race of Rufouls Turtle Dove, as there has only been 2 previous records since 1881!

Moving off from here, the thick fog that had been with us all morning, still hadn't lifted so we decided to give the nearby Drake American Wigeon a miss. Thankfully, we made the right decision as the bird wasn't seen all day.

From here we headed to Willington Gravel Pits in Derbyshire for a Black-Throated Diver. A short walk across a few muddy fields and into a wood and there was the bird..

Although having to view from this distance, good views were had! The bird was on the far section of water beyond the river, quite a way away!

Nearby, a flock of 16 Bewick's swans was a nice way to end a very successfull day's twitching!

To see Alex's account of our Oxfordshire twitch, visit:- http://birdingnorthwales.blogspot.com/.

If you are interested about more information on the bird, it's location and general ecology, to see more information, visit:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8326275/500-birdwatchers-gather-to-spot-rare-Oriental-Turtle-Dove.html

SCAN 19TH/20TH FEBRUARY 2011

Since my post from last Thursday, each day from then on has been fully booked; either with mist-netting or a general busy itenary. Before I update on my recent ringing antics, our last SCAN weekend hasn't been mentioned yet so here goes..

As the winter of 2011 is coming to an end now, so too is our cannon-netting along the North Wales coast. So on Friday 18th February, myself, Kane, Zac and Hamza were raring to go.. A meal, a few pints and an early night was in order as we had to be up early the next morning.

The following morning and we were up at 5am and heading towards Llanfairfechan, where 3 cannon-nets were set, in which we were targeting a flock of Dunlin and Redshank. As usual, I was put on twinkling duties; Combined with Rachel and Richard, we managed to make a catch of 27 Redshank and 68 Dunlin shortly after. This was all thanks to Steve who was in constant contact with us with radios.

The fired cannon-net, which caught 27 Redshank and 68 Dunlin.

Soon after, a flock of 47 Redshank landed safely in the catching area and this soon brought our total for the morning to a nice sample of 74 Redshank and 68 Dunlin.

We had a large team throughout the weekend so this enabled us to extract the birds quickly and efficiently, ready for ringing and processing.

When it comes to processing the birds, the team is split into 2 teams; one for ringing and the other for taking biometric data. Here - Myself, Richard de Feu, Ian Lees and Steve Dodd on the processing team taking biometric data.

Once the birds have been ringed they are placed in safe keeping boxes ready to be released.

A few hours sleep and some much needed food inside us, we met again at Llanfairfechan Sewage works for some night time mist-netting. A total of 7 mist-nets were set in gorgeous surroundings and with clear, calm skies, we caught 28 Redshank, 2 Dunlin and superb Juvenile Greenshank! As i'm used to ringing until very late, I wasn't surprised when we finally finished at 00:00 that night!

Hamza Yassin with the Juvenile Greenshank

The following morning we were up at 8am at Beaumaris, where we set 2 nets along the shingle beach. Unfortunately, the birds weren't playing ball during the morning and twinkling was hard work, so only 4 Ringed Plover and 1 Dunlin were caught.

At the end of the weekend, the ringing totals are as follows:- 102 Redshank, 71 Dunlin, 4 Ringed Plover and 1 Greenshank.

Huge thanks to Steve and Rachel and the rest of the team for a productive and successfull weekend's ringing!

Ring Reading in Bangor

Photographed by Zac Hinchcliffe

After finding the Herring Gull and Black-Headed Gull bearing Darvics at seperate locations, once I was back in Bangor I was keen to get down to Bangor harbour to have a look and see if there were any more ringed gulls.. Several trips were made at the end of January and a few at the beginning of February with some interesting results..

Myself and Zac spent more than 16 hours down in the harbour trying to read the rings that 3 Black-Headed gulls were wearing! Several packets of chips and many photos later, we had solved their identities.. We managed to obtain the full codes of 2 of the birds but the 3rd bird eluded us!

7T69449 - Brussels
ST239892 - Finland
3.61-.--- - Holland

Photographed by Zac Hinchcliffe

I am not going to be defeated by the last bird so in the next few weeks when I actually have some time spare, I will be down in the harbour in search of that gull and its ring sequence!

Delightful Darvics

During the last few weeks there has been a clear lack of posting to the blog, which is mainly due to the increased workload at university and not enough free-time.. Since my last post about the intriguing sighting of the Short-eared Owl in Bangor Harbour, my day-to-day life has been somewhat rather busy..

Throughtout the next few days I shall give a full update on my ringing antics..

Taking a look back to my trip to Moore Nature Reserve with Alex Jones, where we were in search of the elusive Lesser-Spotted Woodpeckers, I mentioned that I observed a Herring Gull wearing a Darvic. Reading the Darvic proved rather tricky and with so many gulls roosting on the same lake, the bird just didn't keep still. However, after about 10 minutes of constant obervations and several pictures later, I am pretty sure the Darvic read - 19G0. However, I have recently been informed by Kane that the bird was ringed by the North Thames Gull Group in London, but unfortunately we are unable to identify the individual due to poor pictures. {not so clear in the photos above and below}. I do know that this bird was ringed either at Pitsea or Rainham Landfill site!

In the mean time, this bird wasn't ringed in Britain and so has travelled quite some distance.. This message is aimed at anyone who is a bird ringer abroad - if you read or follow my blog, have you ringed this Herring gull and if so, please contact me through the blog.. cheers!

The other Darvic that I read was at Newton Park Lake at Newton-Le-Willows in Manchester, on 23/1/11. I have to admit, this was a bit of a surprise find! I had been ringing with Kane for the past few days and after being dropped off at the station, I had literally just missed my train home, so a quick look in the park opposite the station was in order, equppied with some left-over butties, this is what greeted me..

This Adult Black-Headed Gull - Red Darvic V374 with white writing, is a bird that was ringed somewhere abroad. If you read my blog have you ringed this bird and if so, please do get in touch..

It makes you wonder what else is lurking in urban parks and other gull flocks?!

Sun, Sea, Chips and s*** me it's a shortie

Over the last few days the weather has been absolutely atrocious in North wales! Waking up this morning, it was a nice surprise to see the sun shining and cloudless blue skies all around.. Spending the morning in lectures and then having a practical in the module - 'Practical Conservation and Ecology' involving the whole class splitting up into groups and observing taxi registration numbers throughout the whole of Bangor as part of a mark and recapture report, I had had enough by lunchtime and met up with Zac down in Bangor harbour for some birding and to see if I could pick up a few yearticks along the way..

Down in Porth Penrhyn, we found a section of beach where we had a quick scan around! The next thing we know, a large flock of Oystercatcher and Dunlin flush from a nearby embankment and a raptor is in hot pursuit of the flock.. A quick look and bluddy hell - it was a Short-Eared Owl!! With this strange sighting, we queried ourselves as to whether or not it was a winter migrant?!

Photographed by Zac Hinchcliffe

Basing ourselves on a wall down by the boat yard in Bangor harbour, a Peregrine Falcon shot through low, right in-front of us, spooking everything in sight. Next was an Adult Mediterranean Gull that Zac spotted in the harbour. Great stuff!

Alex Jones soon joined us in the harbour on his way home from lectures, he too enjoyed this beautiful adult gull unfortunately with no darvic on!

Other birds seen on our 4 hour break include:-

- 7 Pale-Bellied Brent Geese

- 25+ Common Scoter

- 6 Goldeneye

- 1 Rock pipit

During our break, we also managed to observe 10 ringed Redshank which were more than likely birds we had ringed through SCAN.

Seeing as though Zac had his Canon 40D camera with him and his lense, I had a mess around at some photography as I shall be buying his 30D camera soon..

Here are some of my efforts from today..

Whilst we were down in the harbour we observed 2 foreign ringed Black-headed gulls, however we are missing a few digits from both birds, so we will be back down in the harbour tomorrow morning to finish off the job. This evening we spent our time down at Tesco in Bangor in search of a Pied wagtail roost. To finish a great day off, we found the roost which contained between 100-120 birds so hopefully we will try and have a ringing session in the few weeks and see if we can catch a few, so I will keep you posted on this in due course.. Cheers for now!

SCAN - 5th/6th February 2011

Unfortunately, the weather for last week was forecast to be very wet and windy. The weather forecasters actually got it right for once, so we were in for a wet and windy weekend. Although the weather for the weekend turned out to be alot worse than I originally expected. Unfortunately, this weekend was SCAN Ringing Groups {Shropshire, Conwy and Anglesey} last cannon-netting weekend of this winter and amazingly, after our catch at the weekend - SCAN Ringing Group has successfully ringed just over 404,045 birds since it was set-up!

This weekend I was joined by mates Kane Brides, Craig Brookes and Ciaran Hatsell who drove up to Bangor to give us a hand over the weekend. Throughout Saturday, we began to deal with the fact that the rain wasn't going anywhere. So with a break in the rain, we set 2 cannon-nets quickly and efficiently on different beaches so to maximise our disturbance to the site as the tide was on it's way in. During the morning, we fired both of the nets; resulting in 16 Shelduck, 1 Wigeon, 1 Redshank and 5 Turnstone being caught.

With such a small catch, it gave us more time to concentrate on the criteria we use for ageing these birds. More importantly, it was a chance for other folk to appreciate the birds in the hand and to practise fitting larger rings..

Robin Sandham, new to cannon-netting - holding his first wader - a Juvenile Redshank..
Spending time on ageing the Shelducks enabled us to truley appreciate the beauty of these over-looked wildlfowl.

Craig Brookes and Kane Brides discussing the age of a Shelduck with my trainer, Steve Dodd..
My warden in my flat at university, came along as I had promised him that he could take some photographs for his course and to hold some birds during the weekend.. Hamzar Yassin has had an interest in birds for a few years now, but bringing him along to this weekend, he truley appreciated the sheer beauty of the birds and it was great to show him the birds in the hand that he had been watching during his time at Bangor..
Huge thanks to Steve and Rachel for yet another great weekend's cannon-netting. More thanks to Hamzar Yassin for doing all the driving and transporting us to the sites. Thanks to Kane Brides, Craig Brookes and Ciaran Hatsell for making Saturday night an interesting night out in Bangor, all of us were pretty drunk, but we can't not forget young Zac..

This weekend was Zac's first experience at cannon-netting and he thoroughly enjoyed it! To see other accounts of this weekend, visit:-

- Zac's site @ http://zacswildlifeblog.blogspot.com/

- Kane's site @ http://birdringing.blogspot.com/

- Craig' site @ http://wwwblackpoolbirder-craig.blogspot.com/

Our efforts on Sunday were ended due to the wind being too strong, so no attempt was made to set a net.. Hopefully, I will be out ringing with Steve in 2 weeks time, as Steve is away this weekend, but check back soon as I plan to get out birding sometime this week..

A net full of tits!

Throughout the whole of January I haven't been able to get out with Steve, as he has been very busy with work and as I have been busy at university with various reports and exams.. This morning, along with Rachel, Ian and Zac, we had a session over at Caernarfon netting Arthur's large feeders in his garden. The purpose of this visit was to do some valuable training with myself and Ian; as well as to let Zac have his first ringing 'lesson' with Steve as he has started to train to ring birds with us..

To see Zac's account of his first bird ringing 'lesson', visit:- http://zacswildlifeblog.blogspot.com/

We set 3 other nets in other different habitats behind the farmhouse, just to add a bit of variety to the session as it would be mostly dominated by tits.. Once we were all organised and our ringing station set up, it was time for our first net-round of the morning. At least 40 birds present, mostly Blue and Great tits, so it was good to brush up on ageing tits..

Throughout the morning we caught just under 150 birds, mainly tits but with the odd Robin, Dunnock, Blackbird, Chaffinch, Coal tit. I suppose the best birds have to be 10+ Bullfinch and a Great-Spotted Woodpecker..

If that wasn't enough to tire me out, a game of badminton shortly after once getting back into Bangor sure did...

There won't be any ringing news until next weekend when it is our last SCAN weekend this winter, although there is a chance of cannon-netting Wigeon and Shelduck in Bangor Harbour at the start of this week so I will keep you updated on this..

Other news that brightened up my day was a most welcome chat with Steve.. Once the spring is upon us and and I have found some open-nest pulli, I shall be applying for my pullus endorsement with Steve, ready for the 2012 season.. Stage 1 complete.. I can't wait!

Many thanks to Steve and Rachel for a great session this morning and to Arthur and his wife for supplying us with coffee, tea and biscuits throughout the morning, even though it was -8..